Key terms & definitions

A simplified statement accepted for the purpose of making an estimate or calculation.

A condition accepted as true when constructing or using a model, often to simplify the real system.

A condition or simplification accepted when using a model, which may restrict where its predictions are useful.

A condition taken to be true when using a mathematical model, such as all workers working at the same constant rate.

The Catholic belief that Mary was taken body and soul into heavenly glory at the end of her earthly life.

A timing circuit with no stable output state that repeatedly switches between high and low outputs.

The path towards union with the divine through meditation and disciplined control of the mind and senses; also called raja yoga.

A small, mainly rocky body that orbits the Sun.

A hot, softer region of the upper mantle beneath the lithosphere, where rock can deform and flow very slowly.

An instrument used to measure the angle of the Sun or stars above the horizon, helping sailors estimate their latitude.

The belief that the positions and movements of stars and planets influence human affairs, including health.

The belief that the positions and movements of stars and planets influence human lives.

A Babylonian record combining observations of astronomical phenomena with information about events on earth.

A jealous or combative demigod, also called a titan, represented in a separate realm in six-realm versions of the Wheel of Life.

Protection given by a country to someone who cannot safely return to their own country.

Someone who has applied for protection in another country and is awaiting a decision on their claim.

A person who has requested protection in another country and is awaiting a decision on their claim.

A person who has left their own country to seek safety and protection in another, often after experiencing persecution.

A person asking another country for protection whose asylum claim has not yet been decided.

A line that a curve approaches increasingly closely without reaching. For exponential growth and decay graphs, the $x$-axis, $y=0$, is a horizontal asymptote.

A list whose items are not joined by conjunctions such as ‘and’.

A list whose items are not joined by conjunctions such as ‘and’, often creating an accumulating or insistent effect.

A group of three parallel words, phrases or clauses without a joining conjunction, such as “distinct, formal, mirthless”.

The imagined return to an earlier, more primitive ancestral state. In Victorian discussions, this could express fears that civilisation concealed an animal-like capacity for violence.

An ending usually showing that the negative ion contains oxygen bonded to another element, as in nitrate, carbonate or sulfate.

Short comic farces associated with Atella in Italy, using masks and recurring stock characters.

The belief that no god or gods exist.

Belief that God does not exist.

A person who does not believe that God or gods exist.

An Anglo-Saxon title meaning prince, used for a man of royal birth considered eligible for kingship.